Backwards Skiing for a forward Stance

I love to teach people to ski backwards, especially to help them troubleshoot stance and weight distribution issues. This is especially effective for skiers who tend to lean back too much and also to help skiers get a feel for how they should be pressuring your skis and boots when they need to edge aggessively. Since the times you most need to edge aggressively — steep and icy terrain — are precisely the times when fear is most likely to push you into the hill, this can be great for someone struggling to get comfortable on more challenging terrain.

Choose Your Terrain

For this exercise, though, we will not be starting on challenging terrain. If your idea of fun is pulling out you twin tips, skiing backwards at high speed, hitting a huge jump and pulling a 540 is your idea of fun, you're probably not reading this tip. For skiers who are not comfortable with skiing backwards yet, you want to try this on beginner terrain, but not flat. It needs to be steep enough that stopping in a wedge would take a bit of effort, but not be difficult for you. The ideal thing is to do this on the last 20-30 feet of slope before a flat runout.

Take Your Marks, Get Set, Go!

Come to a stop on the slope you've chosen, and turn around so you're facing uphill. Get into a herringbone (aka a "V", essentially a backwards wedge/snowplow). Climb uphill for a couple of steps. Now stand a little taller and release your edges until you start to slide. Immediately brake hard. You want to come to a quick, hard stop. Try that a few times, letting yourself slide a bit more, but not too far. You only need to slide 2-4 feet (roughly a meter) before stopping abruptly (okay, you get it. I know). Pay attention to the position of your knees and ankles, and especially feeling how much pressure you have on your shins. It can help to stop hard, stay put and close your eyes to feel the position and above all, the pressure. For many people, you'll feel a lot more pressure on your shins than you're used to feeling when you ski. Implant that feeling in your mind.

Put It into Practice

If you're almost out of slope, wait until you get to the next pitch and do the exercise one more time. This time, however, hold the stopping position just long enough to really feel the pressure on the shins, then open your eyes, turn around, and ski forward in a wedge (experts too!). Now stop hard in a a wedge and try to create the same forward pressure that you felt when skiing backwards. This time, though, you'll be really getting your weight downhill rather than uphill. That might be disconcerting, which is why you want relatively low-angle terrain for this. Do a few of these until you really feel the new stopping and ediging power you have.

If you're an advanced skier, now let the skis run straight on a slight traverse across the hill. Get as much speed as you're comfortable with. Now crank a hard turn into the hill (i.e. turn uphill) and try to feel that same hard pressure on your shin on the outside (downhill) leg (balancing the pressure on the legs is for another lesson!). Practice that a few times. If it's still going well, point the skis straight downhill, get some speed and crank another hard turn on the outside leg, with that same hard pressure on the shin and the front of the ski. If you previously had your weight back at all, you should feel a much stronger edge that gives you a lot more grip on firm, steep snow. Congratulations! You're ready to smoke NASTAR now.

Why Are We Doing This?

Many skiers tend to lean into the hill when they're scared. We all know that. Even after the fear subsides, though, that old habit can be hard to break and that prevents us from getting solid forward pressure we need it most — on steep and icy slopes. Skiing backwards turns the whole equation around. If you are scared, you'll still lean into the hill, but now that lean is effectively leaning forward, toward the tips of your skis, not leaning back, onto the tails. In other words, that same fear now works in your favor and helps you feel what hard and aggressive edging is like, without having to manage fear on top of it. The trick is the to really put that feeling in your mind and be able to apply the same technique when you're facing forward, which does require overcoming that fear of leaning hard downhill.

Even if you're not afraid at all, the simple fact of having the skis angled uphill and our brains wanting to keep our bodies essentially vertical means that you increase the angle between your skis and your legs. That, in effect, puts extra pressure on the shins. So the exercise works for the fearless as well as the fearfull. The big advantage this has, though, is in separating the two components for folks who feel uncomfortable getting out over the skis. This lets you learn the physical skill first and get comfortable with it, then apply it in a situation where you might want to lean into the hill, but having memorized the position and feel, you'll be able to pull it off.